ALONG THE
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY ROUTE IN BURGUNDY-FRANCHE-COMTé

For three
and a half centuries, 15 million Africans were dragged from their lands and
enslaved on the plantations of the Americas. Launched in 2004, the ‘Abolition
of Slavery Route’ reminds us of the struggle led by Abbot Grégoire, Toussaint
Louverture, Anne-Marie Javouhey, Victor Schoelcher and those unknown people of
Champagney against this cruel servitude. It forms an integral part of ‘The
Slave Route’, an international project supported by the UN and UNESCO focusing
on our duty to remember. Three major sites in Burgundy-Franche-Comté allow you
to delve deeply into this subject: ‘the recognition of the black slave trade
and slavery as a crime against humanity’.

The following is the text of a press release issued by Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Tourism, reproduced with permission.

THE HOUSE OF
NEGRITUDE - CHAMPAGNEY

On 19th
March 1789, a few months before the French Revolution, in a small village of
HauteSaône in the north of what is now Burgundy-Franche-Comté, the local people
drew up a charter of grievances in which they expressed their solidarity with
black slaves. Veritable pioneers, they wrote to the King of France: 'The
inhabitants and community of Champagney cannot think of the ills being suffered
by Negroes in the colonies, (…) without feeling a stabbing pain in their hearts'.

This was a
drastic and courageous act that we can fully appreciate the visionary
significance of at the House of Negritude and Human Rights thanks to a
reproduction of a slave ship and numerous African and Haitian objects that
illustrate negritude (or the values of black civilisations around the world). www.maisondelanegritude.fr.

CHATEAU DE
JOUX: THE PRISON OF TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE - PONTARLIER

On the
summit of a rocky outcrop at an altitude of 1000 metres, the Château de Joux guard’s
entry to the water gap at Pontarlier, a natural thoroughfare into Switzerland.
From 1690 to 1815 it was a State prison and, in 1802, became home to Toussaint
Louverture (1743/1803), who was jailed under the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte
for having opposed the reintroduction of the black slave trade. This former
slave who had become Governor of the Island of Santo Domingo (present day
Haiti) and ringleader of the Santo Domingo rebellion, died a few months after
his incarceration here. Today, the cell that held Toussaint Louverture,
situated on the ground floor of the dungeon, welcomes countless visitors that come
to pay tribute to this predecessor of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, a
symbol of the emancipation of peoples. www.chateaudejoux.com

THE MAISON
ANNE-MARIE JAVOUHEY - CHAMBLANC

‘Negroes are
not deaf to the voice of morality nor to that of civilisation; children of God,
they are men just like us.’Anne-Marie Javouhey.

It was in
1805 that Sister Javouhey founded a religious congregation that was soon called
to the missions in the French Overseas Territories. There it would become the
very first order of female missionaries. In 1817 these sisters set off to the
Islands and to Africa where they would bear witness to the black slave trade.
After an initial stop in Senegal, in 1838 Sister Javouhey oversaw the
emancipation of more than 500 black slaves seized aboard slave ships in Mana,
Guyana.

Besides the
family home of Anne-Marie Javouhey and a museum space located in the school that
currently bears her name, the remembrance forest, made up of 150 trees each
named after one of the first freed Africans, keeps alive the memory of the
liberation of the slaves in Guyana.

These three
main sites form part of the National Remembrance Hub of the Grand-Est that brings
together all the French remembrance sites and historic figures involved in the abolition
of slavery. It includes the sites of Toulon-sur-Arroux and Charolles, where the
charter of grievances demanding the abolition of slavery was drawn up, the
Ursulines

Museum in
Mâcon and the Château de Lamartine in Saint-Point (71), which preserves the memory
of Lamartine, a signatory of the French decree abolishing slavery that gave
more than 250,000 slaves in the French colonies their freedom on 27th April
1848.

More
information: www.abolitions.org and https://patrimoine.bourgognefranchecomte.com